After a year in my post grad life and I thought now would be the perfect time for some reflecting! I never would have imagined that a year after graduating, I would be working my third job since, and working from home during a global pandemic, as well as (finally!) pursuing some creative endeavours.
When I finished school last year, I was feeling quite lost in my life. I spent the school year applying for full time jobs and was hoping to have an offer prior to graduating. I’m glad I gave myself grace, because I knew that I should enjoy being unemployed before starting my first job. I was told by many that after starting to work, I wouldn’t get the opportunity to relax, and I listened.
So I finished school with no full time offer, and decided I would take this time to travel instead. I ventured off to Vancouver with my best friend and to Asia with my family. Looking back now, I am so glad that I didn’t put that pressure on myself to find a job right when I finished school and instead spent the time to travel and relax since it’s true. You really don’t have that kind of freedom to do that once you start working. I’m so grateful I had the financial means to be able to travel before I starting my “real adult life.”
Luckily, during my time in Asia, I was able to do a Skype interview and get a job offer! A week after returning to Canada, I started my full time career. I spent a wonderful four months at a digital marketing contract job and learned so much. From marketing, to the Toronto Arts and Dance community, I absorbed everything like a sponge.
Once that was over, I was back in the world of applying for jobs and took a mini vacation. Something I took from this time is that unemployment is a “normal” thing to happen in people’s careers. I realized it’s very common upon talking to people in my life who are ahead in their career and it’s not something to be ashamed of. To me, unemployment should be taken as time to truly work on yourself and explore ventures that you were too afraid of trying before or didn’t have the time to do. I always feel like when the right opportunity comes along, it will bring you out of unemployment, and all that work you did on yourself will pay off.
Moving on to my second job post-grad, I started working in a social media agency and this was by far one of my most interesting and fun work experiences. I learned a lot about social and how to write in a fun and socially captivating way, in addition to things about the alcohol beverage industry! But I felt like there was something missing and it wasn’t exactly my “perfect” job in the current stage of my career, so I started job hunting again. This time, it felt weird because it wasn’t like I was job hunting aggressively, to find a new job in order to get out of unemployment. It was the first time I was job hunting with a specific wish list and I was a bit more selective in the roles that I applied for.
I originally wasn’t planning to start job hunting as early as I did, but I saw a role that I thought I would be great fit for and wanted to see if I had the potential to succeed in it. I didn’t end up getting the role, but by going through that application process again, it made me realize that there wasn’t much harm in slowly starting to apply for a few roles that I was really interested in. The only thing that stopped me before was my fear of not being good enough, or not having enough real working experience yet. But I’m so glad that I was able to push myself and just start browsing job sites and applying for jobs or else I wouldn’t be at the job I am at now.
Through that process, I also had to experience my first resignation. All of my previous jobs before were contract or internships and I never knew how to really approach handing in my resignation. It took a lot of Google-ing and advice from friends and family, but I was able to do it and luckily had support from my employers. What I learned from that is that, at the end of the day, it’s part of the work life cycle. I don’t think any (maybe a few) employers expect you to work at their company forever, so they always know that one day you will resign. The best thing you can do is to do it graciously and respectfully, as you never want to burn any bridges.
So that brings us to the present. I’m onto my third job post grad and working at a company and in a role that I very much enjoy and have a passion for. It’s crazy to look back on all of this and think about how much I’ve accomplished and gone through in a year’s time and how things are so different now. I think the thing that stands out to me the most is the idea of “everything always works out.”
A lot of our lives have to do with timing and I believe that trusting the timing of your life is the only way to get through it with a sense of peace. At the moment, it may seem like nothing’s going right or that this isn’t in the right place, but I think looking back, a lot of our lives go the right way because of the timing of how things played out. Trust your gut and the timing of your life, because everything works out.
